


set fire to our home

by tobus (asoldandtrueasthesky)



Series: we can change the world (but we can't right all the wrongs) [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, autistic characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 07:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asoldandtrueasthesky/pseuds/tobus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The disappointment never really fades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	set fire to our home

He’s 12 years old and his dæmon has settled, though he doesn’t know it yet.

His father has been in jail for a week and he wasn’t sad anymore, just angry. Angry at his father for doing something _wrong_ , for breaking a moral absolute and for leaving his family in turmoil. Angry at the kids at his school for ridiculing him and ostracising him. Angry at society for being _wrong_.

Kaila said that anger could be good, that it didn’t have to be bad if you did something with it. Anger can change the world, Seral had added, do you think anyone would protest out of mild objection? Toby thinks they’re probably right but he can’t seem to do anything good with his anger. He just wants to cry. Maybe he is sad after all.

But he’s almost home and he definitely can’t break down where anyone could see him. He wants Murkurial to be a bird, the grip of her talons and the weight on his shoulder had always been comforting before.

_I don’t want to._

Toby stops dead in the street. She’s a snake right now, she’d been taking snake forms for the past week no matter how much he’d chastised her and he realises too late what that meant. “No! Not that, you can’t.”

Murkurial doesn’t change. She can’t, not anymore, he can feel it in his bones and in his soul.

Don’t be disappointed in your dæmon is a mantra he knows as well as any prayer. It’s the worst form of self-loathing, it’s always being disappointed with yourself. But he can’t help it, she wasn’t meant to settle as a snake, and all his anger and sadness spills out.

“Be a sparrow or a goddamn rabbit or something! Or a raven, you used to like being a raven. Not this.” He already had a murderer for a father and a religion people didn’t like, he didn’t need a dæmon that was synonymous with danger to boot. He didn’t want people to look at him like he was turning into his father.

“You can’t deny the shape of your soul, Tobias.” She says. Though others see her as aloof- she rarely talks to other daemons- she has always been a reflection of Toby’s softer side, his kindness and conscience and idealism. He thinks she’s probably right but he cries anyway.

He makes it home not much later than usual and makes sure to wipe away all his tears before he goes inside. He almost makes it to the stairs before someone calls his name. He hopes he’s hidden all trace of his earlier outburst but his face will probably betray him.

He considers ignoring them and shutting himself in his room anyway but Murkurial, who is definitely being rebellious today, slithers over to his sisters and he’s forced to follow.

“David said you were acting weird at school today.”

He fidgets, trying to avoid Noa’s perceptive gaze. “Then David was wrong.”

“What’s the matter, Toby?” Noa’s seventeen and a half which, as far as the authorities are concerned, makes her enough of an adult for them to turn a blind eye and let her be the head of the household. After all, David’s the only one of them who’s remotely adoptable. She’s the picture of parental concern right now, her raven dæmon, Israe, watching Murkurial from her shoulder, so she must be doing a good job.

Kaila, two years younger, seems unconcerned but he can tell from the way her wildcat dæmon is staring at him expectantly, lashing his tail, already prepared to attack whoever or whatever is troubling him that it’s an act.

“You’ve been taking snake forms for a while now.” Israe notes. Toby realises with a pang that they’ll never have matching bird daemons again, their daemons will never fly together.

Murkurial tenses. “That’s what Toby’s upset about.”

“You’ve settled?”

Toby nods sullenly, staring at the ground.

“Mazel tov.” Israe says in his voice that sounds too old for them and swoops down to get a better look at her.

“Mazel tov.” Seral echoes and pads over to sniff her scales.

“I always thought she was going to be a bird.” He says in a small voice. “People don’t like snakes.”

Kaila frowns and Seral’s back arches, trying to protect him against enemies that weren’t there. “If anyone has a problem with your dæmon or dad or anything else punch ‘em right in the face.”

“Or, you know, beat them in a debate. You’d probably break your knuckles if you punched someone.” Noa adds as Israe returns to her shoulder.

“Any brother of mine can throw a punch right.”

“The point is,” Noa says, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it the way she does when they’re at protests and the noise of the crowd starts to get too much for him, “all that matters is what you think. Let’s see what kind of snake Murk is.” She leads him over to their big encyclopaedia of animals, the very same one they’d used to get information about their dæmons and Kaila follows.

After a while of searching the book Noa announces, “She’s a chrysopelea ornata, a golden flying snake. They’re poisonous but only mildly, they’re not dangerous to humans.”

He picks up Murkurial, this time looking at her with curiosity. She’s a thin, moderately long snake. Her slenderness makes her look graceful and her yellow scales are barred with black.

Noa passes the book to Kaila who starts to read aloud. “Flying snakes can glide impressive distances and use that to `fly` from tree to tree. People with flying snake dæmons tend to be highly sensitive, introverted, evasive and slow to adapt but persistent. If they can’t run away from something they’ll waste no time in biting back.” Kaila grins. “Sounds like a great snake. Don’t be afraid to bite back, Tobus.”

Murkurial curls around his arm and it feels almost as comfortable as it did when she was a bird on his shoulder. Almost. He ducks his head, ashamed of his behaviour towards Murkurial and embarrassed by all the attention. “Thank you.”

Noa smiles. “Now we can celebrate.”

 

Most people have a night out with their family and a nice meal in a restaurant but they can’t afford that. Instead Noa makes him his favourite kind of pie for dinner and Kaila lets him eat all the chocolate he wants and they both promise they’ll buy him some books on snake daemons next time they’re at a bookshop.

There’s a ceremony they need to do but Noa can only half remember it so she’s abandoned dinner in favour of research, surrounding herself with a pile of scriptures.

David’s lurking in the hallway, squinting at them suspiciously. “How comes Toby gets all that chocolate?”

Kaila offers him a bar and he runs over in boyish excitement, wariness forgotten. “Murkurial settled.”

“Cool!” David grins, “All my friends want to settle as pythons. Or lions.”

Alethia shifts from a wolf pup to a corn snake, slithering up to Murkurial. “Are you a python?”

“I’m a flying snake.”

“You can fly?”

“It’s a misnomer,” Toby says but then adds with pride, “but she can glide really far.”

Kaila takes out some chocolate for herself and then offers the tray to Toby. “Want anymore?”

“Can I eat it upstairs?” “Sure. What are you going to do?”

“Write stories.”

“About snakes.” Murkurial adds.

Kaila ruffles the hair on his head and Seral rubs her head against Murkurial. “You’ll change the world with your words, one day.”

Toby smiles and believes her.

-

Now he’s forty years old and while he’ll throw a punch at anyone who objects to his dæmon or his father or his Jewishness _and_ beat them in a debate, his words haven’t changed the world and he’s lost every campaign he’s worked for.

Meanwhile, all of his family are strangers and he’s not sure how it happened.

Kaila left at 17, leaving Noa to care for them by herself. Toby doesn’t blame her, though it dropped even more responsibility on his shoulders. It had been suffocating, living in a broken family, its members engaged in their own wars with the world. He’d have left with her if he could.

Noa had never been good at holding grudges but the sisters had never been the same after that and by then David was old enough to understand betrayal. Eventually, they all left Brooklyn, as they’d always wanted to, and David became an astronaut, Noa became a teacher, Kaila became an activist and he became a failure.

Soon he realised that they’d simply ran out of words, their conversations suddenly stilted and awkward, as if they were acquaintances on the street, as if they hadn’t lived through their childhoods crashing and burning together, their pasts a chasm between them. He knows the others stay in touch, stubbornly trying to rekindle a flame of something long gone and they invite him round every Hanukah. He never shows. He still feels kinship with Kaila- the others have forgiven their father, forgiven everything, its only Kaila who’s kept her anger burning. But it’s the bitterness that binds them, not their blood.

He’s sure that one day he’ll find out she’s talked to him or sent him a letter and it’ll feel like betrayal, a violation of an oath never made.

He’s starting to get pretty convinced that he’s just not destined for happiness or any sense of fulfilment. Murkurial curls tighter around his arm.

He bites back a groan as someone sits next to him. He’d planned to spend the rest of the night sulking in a corner alone with a bottle of whisky, talking was not on the agenda.

_It’s Leo and Pythia._

He looks up at that, a spark of interest ignited- Leo McGarry doesn’t come into bars to not have a drink for small talk. Leo is indeed sitting next to him and Pythia sits at his feet, her African Wild Hunting Dog form equal parts beautiful and dangerous. He bets Leo doesn’t have to deal with many brawls.

“I’ve heard you’re looking for work.”

“I’m looking for something.” He mutters.

_We really do need a job_ , Murkurial points out, _and if we turn away every opportunity we’ll never find what we’re looking for_.

Trying to summon a modicum of professionalism he turns around to Leo. “Who needs a speechwriter?”

“You know the Governor of New Hampshire?”

“Surprisingly, Leo, I have not committed every governor in the United States to memory.”

“Josiah Bartlet.” Leo supplies and the name rings a bell, though he thinks it’s from a half remembered history lesson.

“Is he related to anyone?”

“If you mean Josiah Barttlet, signatory of the Declaration of Independence, yeah.”

There were a lot of people like that in politics, people with impressive family trees and prestigious last names, who coasted through on pasts that had nothing to do with them, who pursued power for titles and boasting rites rather than a desire to change things.

“I don’t work for people who don’t have ideas of their own.”

“He has ideas and ideals, Toby, trust me. I’ve had to sit through most of them.” He stands up to leave. “Come to New Hampshire, if you’re interested.”

He’s sceptical and New Hampshire’s far to travel on a whim but he trusts Leo, most people do.

“Leo?”

Leo turns back.

He’s about to ask if he has a chance against Hoynes but Murkurial asks something different. “Can he win?”

Pythia grins, a smug grin that shows off her canines. “He’s going to be the President of the United States.”


End file.
